LESS HILLS MOD

[flexter]

Out of around 100 games ive played 2 maps with flat terrain. Mountains and hills get in the way of the combat. Does someone know of a mod that reduces hills in the game or will create one.

thanks

[Emperor of Hell]

I don't think that's possible because you can't edit the map in Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2 total war

[The Hedge Knight]

Its perfectly possible. But no one will make it, too much work.

[Chevalier IX]

Japan doesnt really have a whole lot of flat plains by my understanding

[weirdoascensor]

You said it's perfectly possible to edit maps, Hedge.
How? To What Extent?

[AuroN2]

If you can make something
Obviously theres a way to make another one.
Its just CA is a bunch of nazistic wards and wont release the mapping tool for those 3 games.
We all know they have one.

[hochmeister devin]

Last time I checked the only times I don't get hill battles are in flat ground of the campaign map... Yes I agree with you there needs to be more flat maps, because Japan totally have the technology to bulldoze every battle field they go to fight on.

[Aeneas2020]

Almost every campaign game i've played recently has featured almost entirely flat battlefields...i guess it's just luck of the draw buddy

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

If you can make something
Obviously theres a way to make another one.
Its just CA is a bunch of nazistic wards and wont release the mapping tool for those 3 games.
We all know they have one.

Almost every campaign game i've played recently has featured almost entirely flat battlefields...i guess it's just luck of the draw buddy

It actually depends on where you are. From my understanding, there are many flat plains in the North of Japan, but far less in the South.

[Akaie]

You said it's perfectly possible to edit maps, Hedge.
How? To What Extent?

I can't be entirely sure until I test it out, but this does stand to reason...

In the directory (...data\battleterrain\templates) are a bunch of .tga files (you'll have to go a bit deeper, for example in the "land_normal" folder and then to another folder like "aki_01"). The 'terrain.tga' one seems to be more important one, with the colours correlating to "terrain_tile_types.xml" (found in that templates folder). With that, you cold draw over the RGB (0,0,0) values with one of the types of hills noted in "terrain_tile_types.xml" upon which you can traverse.

Then of course, you have (...data\campaign_maps\sho_japan) which holds "template_map.xml". That's where the game knows where on the campaign map each of those templates are applied. (kinda hoping the game has the capacity to load a folder from the (...data\battleterrain\presets) folder, but I'm not entirely hopeful)

In any case, looks possible. Not sure why anyone would bother unless they completely re-design the land templates and inject much more maps than there is now. I'll worship the person that actually succeeds in doing that.

[The Hedge Knight]

I can't be entirely sure until I test it out, but this does stand to reason...

In the directory (...data\battleterrain\templates) are a bunch of .tga files (you'll have to go a bit deeper, for example in the "land_normal" folder and then to another folder like "aki_01"). The 'terrain.tga' one seems to be more important one, with the colours correlating to "terrain_tile_types.xml" (found in that templates folder). With that, you cold draw over the RGB (0,0,0) values with one of the types of hills noted in "terrain_tile_types.xml" upon which you can traverse.

Then of course, you have (...data\campaign_maps\sho_japan) which holds "template_map.xml". That's where the game knows where on the campaign map each of those templates are applied. (kinda hoping the game has the capacity to load a folder from the (...data\battleterrain\presets) folder, but I'm not entirely hopeful)

In any case, looks possible. Not sure why anyone would bother unless they completely re-design the land templates and inject much more maps than there is now. I'll worship the person that actually succeeds in doing that.

Your mostly right.

Heres how the game generates 'random' maps.

Essentially it grabs your coordinates and correlates those to the template map you mention.

That then loads a terrain file, an attributes map and a deployment zones map all in the folder specified (and you can find out what these do from the relative xml's).

Castle maps do somthing weird here, may be hardcoded, may be in the esf.

Anyway the attribute map for most areas tells the game what hills to load where essentially, you can find the hills height maps in terrain/battleterrain/tiles/whatever/whatever/whatever along with the building lists on them. Notice that castle maps are essentially preset maps, just in a different place.
-Probably easiest to edit the height maps rather than the terrain.tga's.

Grass and trees are then overlaid according to the blend maps contained with the height maps and the climate type. Decals likewise.